Mary Putnam Jacobi

Shattered medical gender barriers through rigorous scientific research on women's health

Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906), an American physician, revolutionized women's healthcare by applying experimental methods to debunk Victorian-era medical myths. Despite graduating first in her 1864 class at Paris' École de Médecine, she faced discrimination establishing her New York practice.

Her 1876 paper The Question of Rest During Menstruation, which won Harvard's Boylston Prize, used temperature charts and physiological measurements to disprove theories of female constitutional weakness. This work:

• Enabled women's admission to medical schools
• Supported women's right to education/work
• Established evidence-based gynecology

Jacobi founded the Women's Medical Association of New York and taught at Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. Her 1891 Common Sense Applied to Women's Health advocated exercise and rational dress reform.

A cancer survivor, she documented her own terminal illness in Descriptive Analysis of Pathological Experience, demonstrating unparalleled scientific dedication. Jacobi's legacy persists in modern approaches to menstrual health and gender equity in medicine.